Monthly Archives: October 2011

4 years ago Sheriff John Steele hanged Ezekiel Clopton for murdering Eric Weiss in a feud over cattle rustling and land grabbing around Vulture Creek. As he stood on the gallows Ezekiel used his last words to curse any man who brought harm to either of his sons (Jacob and Jebediah) and that he would ride from hell and raze the town should it happen.
The feud has continued with further claims on land and property, violence and vengeance. Two months ago Jacob and Jeb led a retaliatory raid on a Weiss homestead; their vengeance not sated by material gain they burned the house to the ground, killing the young family inside.
Sheriff Steele raised the posse that eventually rode the brothers down and hauled them back to town. Steele spent 3 sleepless nights thinking about what to do next. Why would a god fearing lawman have need to fear the superstitious nonsense of a curse? But the memory of Ezekiel Clopton’s hatred and burning eyes as he stood by the noose made him think twice. The town filled with Weisses and Cloptons demanding justice for their side. After a long meeting with the town preacher his mind was made. At noon that day, Jeb and Jacob mounted the steps to the gallows from which they were duly hanged. As their bodies were cut down, a dust storm began blowing in from the East. By 2pm the town was cut off from all around by billowing clouds of tempestuous sand. Inside the town an eerily calm twilight fell, slowly turning a blood red as the falling sun filtered through the enveloping sand. Sheriff Steele and pastor Tom sat in quiet contemplation on the balcony of the saloon watching as the sun offered a final sanguineous dusk when deputy Lawrence came through the door. “My apologies to disturb you sirs, but…. there’s something I think you need to come and see.”

(Such is the scene for tonight’s Halloween multiplayer. One side gets Sheriff Steele and his lawmen, another Ol’ Tom Moore and his flock, also some angry Cloptons and some quite upset Weisses – can they set their differences aside to face a common threat? Something wicked this way comes…)

Following the rescue of TinMan, the Seattle news has been filled with stories of The Ancients, an Elven gang, disrupting the rehabilitation of a prisoner in the Zoological Gardens. Pundits criticise metahumans undermining the authority of UCAS and Humanis Policlub are milking the story for all they can. Not the best of times for Elves in Seattle.

Whilst Tinman recovers under the care of Kitsune, Smiley calls Brian and asks the runners to meet Slade, a runner and courier, at the Gray Line Restaurant. The job seems pretty sweet: keep an eye on Slade’s vintage Red Samurai armour, get to meet ‘Big’ Ben Howard, the famous director, and perhaps meet the famous Trid star, Pandora.

The team get through the fans and the security and join the set at the Space Needle restaurant for filming of ‘a fistful of credsticks’. Bob’s bowels lead him to settling himself in the lavatory with his commlink, whilst Brian has a chat to the film company’s security chief, Enigmo tries to find extra work as a special effects Mage, and Alex sees to the armour being delivered to the actors.

Filming begins: Jenny Freelance (Pandora) begins negotiation with the Johnson… the elevator dings and to Ben’s disgust, a crowd of fans rushes out of the elevator towards Pandora. Alex returns to the armour to find the actors KO’d and three runners trying to remove the armour…. Alex leaps into action. Meanwhile, Enigmo veils Pandora as she moves behind Brian, and his stun baton mows down the fans approach. Brian meanwhile speeds up his hack, getting security access to the restaurant’s node and closes down the elevator.

Enigmo’s air spirit tells him that a Mage that was perceiving the restaurant has now returned his astral form to his body, and is in the restaurant. Enigmo identifies the mage amongst the fans, and Brian moves to confront him as an Ork steps out to intercept him. Alex by this time has managed to defeat two of the three runners with the third realizing he has no chances in melee combat against Alex’s adept-fuelled martial arts. Brian dispatches the Ork and moves towards the Mage, already stunned by his flash grenade, but is hit by a stunbolt despite Enigmo’s countermagic. Bob finds that a hacker is trying to wrestle control of the node from him and ruthlessly launches his BlackHammer program: the Hacker, realizing he is outclassed, tries to jackout but the IC prevents him and due to the hot VR, the IC fries him. The runners notice a slim Mexican-looking man collapse in the restaurant, blood pouring from his ears, eyes and nose. Enigmo summons and directs a fire spirit, and together with Brian and a manabolt, the Mage falls.

We finished the session with the enemy runner team, or at least those that lived, being taken away by the security and the Doc Wagon taking the rest to the morgue. Pandora is extremely grateful to the team and her manager, Richard Fermin, offers the ongoing security work in LA during the rest of the filming….